


so why is it easy for everyone else

by wastethenight



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: A little bit of blood, Hurt/Comfort, Other, abuse ment?? idk how to tag this its only for like a paragraph, gender neutral reader, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastethenight/pseuds/wastethenight
Summary: the one where connor just needs some help





	so why is it easy for everyone else

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is my first time writing for this fandom, ahhhh im nervous but excited! i hope everyone likes this, connor can be kind of hard to pin down but i tried real hard lol  
> (title from turn out the lights by julien baker) (it's very connor)  
> (this never got beta read so sorry for any mistakes!) 
> 
> fic playlist: burnbliind.tumblr.com/sowhy  
> tips: ko-fi.com/burnbliind  
> tumblr: burnbliind.tumblr.com

It was late. It was so, so late and he promised, you know? He promised he’d stop by, he’d come over and hold your hand like he always does and he’d look into those eyes of yours, he promised he’d stay safe but the clock ticking away on the wall is just so loud. You know he’d tell you not to worry, that you worry too much, that everything is going to be – no – everything is fine and you should trust him especially if he of all people is recognizing that things are fine. Or maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he would keep his mouth shut because he knows his impulses and his flaws and he knows how his heart races and pounds so hard against his rib cage his vision vibrates. You want to text him but you don’t want to be overbearing, particularly if he is fine and he does just need his space but it sure would be better if one thirty in the morning and well over an hour late wasn’t the time to need said space, but you also know he can’t help it and that’s okay. You just worry, even when he tells you not too.

Your mind calls back to a specific night in late October where you had been sat by your window where you had seen the minutes drip down the wall like they were simultaneously mocking your concern and being a silent bystander who wished they didn’t have to pass or participate in your active anxiety while your mobile remained quiet and dark. You were just like you are now, watching the stars fade in and out and wishing upon them for Connor’s safe return and chewing at your fingers like a mad man after picking off the polish Connor had painted on earlier in the month for you – Connor isn’t the only one with bad habits. 

He hadn’t been this late but it was enough to worry you and enough to get you to send five messages in a row just to see if he was okay but it felt like all that did was push him away farther since you’d been left on read. But half an hour later he’d showed up at your door picking at the skin on his nails and trying so desperately to keep the apologies in his mouth that just wanted to fall out because he felt so foolish. He was running his hands through his hair and shaking his head, saying how he was sorry, how he really fucked up this time and you just remember reaching out and grabbing his wrists to intertwine your fingers together and how he had fallen silent. His hands were so cold with his black nail polish hanging on by the skin of its teeth at this point and it felt like it was just the two of you, like the wind stopped blowing, like the stars were still and the world stopped turning. 

You remember how he swallowed so hard in the silence, how his head fell onto your shoulder as you pulled him closely regardless of how tall he was in comparison because he just felt so much and so hard and so safe with you he wanted to let the waves spill from the sea but he never wanted to see you hurt. You remember the vibration of his words through his chest when he explained how he had fought with his father before he made his way out the door and how he just needed to get away because he didn’t want to be too much for so he hopped the fence of the old abandoned orchard like he had so many times with you.  
You remember all those times so well, how you two got caught in the rain once, how Connor’s hands felt on your waist and your legs and how he had helped you up and then made you wait at the top for him to get up and then down so he could help you there too. You remember his hands on your legs and your shoes and your hips, you always remember his touch all over from any time because how could you forget that?

You told him that you wished he was kinder to himself, that he’s never too much, that you’re here to support him because that’s just how it is with you two, that that’s what you do for people you love and care for because you do love him so much. He’s so special, he just needs help. You trace a little heart on his back and that’s that, the two of you retreat into your house and spend the rest of the day glued to the side of the other. 

Now you’d give anything within reason to go back to that moment instead of sitting here tapping anxiously against the screen of your phone, your mind bouncing back and fourth on what to do and where he was. You think that maybe if you were anyone else this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but maybe it would? You aren’t really sure, your stress makes you indecisive and overwhelmed You bite the bullet as you send a couple messages; hey, where are you?, are you alright?, do you need help? 

And you wait. 

You try to do mundane things around the house, you string up some lights that have been sitting in their box for a week, you reorganize the small things that you can but honestly you had prepared so much for Connor everything was already done. Your eyes get heavy and you start to feel the kind of overheat that comes with the aftermath of anxiety even though emotionally you really do not feel like you are in the last stages of your worries. Granted it’s not the worst, but it’s not the best – It’s been another thirty minutes, Connor hasn’t texted back, you message his sister on the off chance she knows where he is (she doesn’t). Just when you’re about to call it a night you see headlights flood in through your windows and you hear the hum of Connor’s car from outside your home before it goes quiet. You feel relief wash over you, everything is fine, he’s right here, a little late is all. 

You go to unlock the big wooden door of your house and when you swing it open you can hear him mutter curse words under his breath from the other side of the screen door when he walks up to your porch with his head hung low and his hands hidden in his pockets. You’re so ready to meet him with a smile, really, you can feel your cheeks start to hurt and it’s right ridiculous how excited you are to see him even if he isn’t in the best mood, you’re ready to offer all you have with a kind grin but then Connor lifts his head up and looks to the side for just a moment before his eyes meet yours. You aren’t sure if you inhale or exhale but your boyfriend is covered in cuts, scrapes, tiny ones, and his nose is bloody and his lip is split and his knuckles are absolutely torn. This isn’t the first time you’ve seen him like this, or the worst, but you feel so much guilt inside of you because you should have texted more you should have called harder but you didn’t want to smother him. 

Connor shakes his head ever so slightly, if you were to blink you would have missed it, and it’s like he reads your mind or more likely the expression on your face and pulls one hand out of his sweater pocket to shake his phone in the air a little, “It’s, uh, dead. It’s been dead so…” He gives you a tight lipped smile, or some kind of facial gesture, you aren’t too sure. 

His phone is certainly more than dead, it’s cracked in a good handful of places and you think his case is a little bloody, it isn’t the end of his phone but there are definitely other things happening here. You try to snap out of your shock and give him a nod so you can open the door for him but you do feel a bit sickly, you know it’s not your fault but it feels like it just a bit. You hold the door open with your side as he makes his way up to you and you just want to hug him but you really should assess all damages first, you stay quiet.

Connor looks at you again and he sighs, he feels so bad and he’s waiting for your disappointment to shine through while he’s struggling to find the right words, “Shit…I’m…so sorry, you-“

“Don’t.” You’re so quiet but you shake your head and cut him off. You reach out your hands ever so slightly and he rests his hands in your palms, his hands are for sure bigger than yours and really unfortunately bloody. You try to swallow your feelings down, you want to be strong and good but you know he’d take you emotional any day and still dub you good, Connor’s just that way for you. Practically all his knuckles are scraped, save maybe three fingers and a thumb, his sweet hands which always hold your and yours so close, everything about Connor is so beautiful and you just hate to see him like this but you don’t want him to feel guilt over you, “Oh honey…”

He gives an airy laugh and smiles a little for you, “I know…”

You shake yourself out of your state and tell him that you ought to get him inside and cleaned up and he nods, following your lead through your house after you lock everything back up, you know he’ll stay here for at least the night and it’s no problem. You know he can’t be alone right now, you know he needs help picking up the pieces and salvaging the day because it’s too hard to do on his own sometimes and that’s okay. 

Connor is tall and lanky and quiet and loud, he’s hard to pin down and one minute he’s fine and the next he feels like nothing is ever going to be alright again and it’s hard, it’s so, so hard for him. Connor is the anxious flame on the candle you like to light when you don’t feel well, he’s the stars that burn in the sky and just want to really be seen by someone. Sometimes Connor looks so small for someone who’s so big and you can almost see how he got lost in everything and it’s like the whole world has almost everything wrong about Connor; and most of them do. 

Sometimes you wish Connor had an easier life for his sake, you wish his brain was easier on him, you wish life was as easy as it was set up for him to be, you wish he didn’t have to go through this. But sometimes you know better, so you try to be the safest place for him to seek shelter in during a storm, you tell him that it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to let it all out even though sometimes you have to pull the reigns back and find a different way to express everything and you know that you can’t be the professional help he needs but he knows that too. You know you can’t coddle his lashing out but it can’t be ignored either, you have to set the stage just right with Connor. Yet you know Connor just feels too much and his head is so loud and he just needs someone and you reckon everyone’s lives would improve if they had more someones. 

You adjust the lights in the bathroom so they’re just bright enough to guide your sight but not so bright that it hurts either one of you or sets Connor off and you motion for him to hop up onto the countertop in front of the mirror while you fetch the first aid kit from the cupboard. He does, this also isn’t the first time you’ve bandaged him up because Connor is a reckless boy at different levels. You try to keep each other in check when you have to, Connor will paint your nails and help you with simple care that you know you should be able to do yourself but sometimes is just too much. Your general presence is always a good thing because Connor is the kind of reckless where he never looks before crossing the street or parking lot and he puts his cigarettes that he wants to stop smoking but can’t seem to stop out on himself (it doesn’t happen too much now, your reaction to it the first time he’d done it was enough to at least start to put him off the thought of it). You both think more will come with time even if at some point you don’t have each other anymore. 

There’s no noise around the two of you as you make your way back to him, just the house settling and a few choice things inside the kit rolling around before you put it down on the sink next to Connor. You open the white box up and rummage around for a few things to take out before you sigh; your poor beautiful boy. You put what you have in your hands down and start to run the water from the sink ever so slightly behind him until its warm enough for a corner of a wash cloth. Sometimes when you get so close to Connor and it’s so quiet you swear he’s the heavy ringing silence in your ears, you’re standing right between his legs now with his knees knocking against your side and his boots hitting the cabinet doors under the sink and he feels so close but so far away. 

You put your free hand on part of his jaw to keep him at a certain angle before you dab at his cuts and scrapes, “Is this okay?”

He nods and closes his eyes for just a moment, you think he looks so tired, Connor has these big dark bags under his eyes because he’s certainly not sleeping enough in the first place and the hardship that is everyday life has taken a toll on him. Then just like that they’re open again, soft and sad and looking at you so hopelessly. You turn his head a bit more so he’s looking you right in the eyes, “Hey…don’t drown in there.”

Connor blinks at you and he’s blank for a moment like he needs to get his feet back on the ground and his head out of the clouds, or more accurately needs to get the clouds out of his head; he looks so lost. He almost looks like he wants to say something but he can’t, the words are all up in his head and his tongue can’t grab hold of them and he hates it because so often it feels like his tongue is too sharp for his own good but when he needs it everything crumbles. You brush a piece of hair out of his face after he glances away for a moment and he places his hand on your wrist, holding on to you just barely. You want to tell him you love him. He knows. 

You stay like that for a moment, Connor holding on to a lifeline and you can almost feel the weight of the world on his back. When you speak it’s soft and you know he knows, or at least that’s what he says but still, “I love you.”

Connor feels like he’s going to cry and it makes him feel overheated and a touch dizzy, yet he doesn’t, he won’t, or maybe he will but not right now. He adverts his gaze to anywhere but your eyes, “I feel like you shouldn’t…but that’s what all those really fucking terrible dudes say.” 

You smile for the quickest moment because he isn’t wrong, really, “But you’re not that. If you were you wouldn’t understand that. Plus terrible guys don’t get in fights with other terrible guys over how bad they are.”

Which is true, granted, you still aren’t sure where you fall with one of the first incidents you encountered with Connor when you started to get serious and open with each other. Connors had it rough but your past isn’t glittering gold – you had this really awful ex, somebody actually terrible, who in hindsight was more manipulative and controlling than loving and kind especially once they laid hands on you. After you got out they’d go through phases where they didn’t want anything to do with you until they did and getting followed everywhere is really not wonderful to say the absolute least. Connor may or may not have had a brush with them after you had retold the better part of a year of your life to him, Connor also may or may not have broken their nose and smashed out their windows with an old baseball bat he’d gotten for the holidays one year but never really used up until that point. You haven’t heard from said ex in a year so you suppose that is what it is. 

“Yeah.” Connor doesn’t sound convinced but you leave it at that. 

It’s quiet again and you’re still struggling to read Connor as you run the washcloth down his face gently, going back and forth between his the small wounds on him and the stream of water, the two of you exist together, it’s your turn to patch him up. You shouldn’t pry at his insides now anyways, not unless he wants you to. 

Your mind wanders into the nothing as you navigate over just a few patches of freckles which some people would miss if they weren’t close enough to Connor, you dab the cloth under his nose that has the vaguest bump to it if you look at it from a certain angle; he’s broken it one too many times you think. He has a cut that will scar over one of his eyebrows, he already has one near the other one so you suppose he’ll be even and he’ll really like that. 

His blue eyes with the tiniest hazel spots in them just watch you, slow and kind and patient, god, you’re so patient with him. Your touch is so gentle and Connor wants to be this soft with you too, he wants to be soft enough around everyone so no one has to worry but at the same time he’s so afraid, his paranoia eats at the soft parts of him far too often to be liked. Guilt blooms in his chest like white roses that take up so much space it’s hard to breathe and when he does he can feel the thorns poke at his lungs, sometimes even when there’s nothing to be guilty about. Sometimes he just feels so sad, or so afraid, or so angry or so betrayed whether there’s something inherently wrong or not. He has to walk a very specific line with himself. 

Connor isn’t the perfect kind of person but he certainly isn’t the worst, which isn’t to excuse what he does but you know he can’t be so hard on himself, he has to find the middle ground of awareness and self-discipline and self-bettering that his parents don’t have. He can’t be awful to himself but he can’t let everything pass, it’s something that he’ll be figuring out every day because Connor really never stops learning new things especially when it comes to himself, no one really stops. Connor knows most all of this, too, or at least he tries to know, every day is a process. 

He thinks that this might just be his life, whether it gets better or not, and you guess he’s right because things can never be perfect for most people even though you so badly wish to be wrong which you might be. The universe is vast and it’s easy to get tangled up in the rings of Saturn and shooting stars and all the black holes but all you have to worry about is the rug underneath your feet and Connor’s legs keeping you near to him and his curls and just the two of you in this bathroom right now. You can stay present together even though it breaks your heart a little to see the blood wash off the cloth and down the sink. 

You sigh as you press a band-aid against Connor’s face, right over the soon-to-be new eyebrow scar and it’s almost healing for you because whatever happens to Connor he will heal with time and some help, he’s always been resilient, he always has to stick it to the man if nothing else which is equally good as it is bad. Connor is strong and you feel lucky to be alive at the same time as him and that the fates made your paths cross, sometimes you get excited for his future. Excited for the days when this is all so far behind him even if he’s still struggling, the struggles will evolve and so will he and he will always be so, so special. You’re excited for the healing for Zoe too, you’re excited to watch her bloom in the most amazing ways, she already does; you think a lot about Connor and Zoe both individually and as a conjoined subject, they both deserve better. 

You step back for a moment once your hands are done fiddling with his face only to come back close because Connor always pulls you back. You give him a sad smile, everything is so bittersweet, you don’t want to but you have to say in the most careful, best intentioned voice that, “You can’t keep doing this, babe.” 

Connor looks down to his feet and nods, he knows you don’t want to lecture him, “I know.”

“I know you know.” He probably knows that you knows that he knows too and the sentence gets twisted and wrapped up in his mind just like it would be coming out, it’s clean and messy at the same time.  
You ask him if you can do his hands now and puts one of them in your outstretched hand, knuckles bloody and bruised, and you can’t help but shake your head. 

“S’not my fault this time, y’know.” 

“What happened?” The question isn’t accusatory or targeting in any manor, it’s a genuine wonder because you weren’t sure Connor would even want to talk about it. 

He brings the hand that you aren’t working on up to his face to brush some hair away, he looks up at the ceiling and sighs because this is hard for him, he feels vulnerable and almost – just almost – afraid. He laughs it off dryly, he doesn’t want to scare you. Connor is used to being mean, he’s used to the feeling that comes after that makes him sick to his stomach, he’s used to the mood swings that give him whiplash, they aren’t easy but he’s learned to expect them but Connor doesn’t think he will ever get used to the feeling of fear. The way the paranoia creeps up his spine into his chest and throat, the paralyzing kind of fear where he feels so scared he can’t breathe or move at all and the way his vision vibrates and he feels like he’s choking on his own breath. 

Connor looks everywhere but you except for when he doesn’t, and he’s looking right at you because Connor is unimaginably good at making eye contact when he wants to or when he’s so bored out of his skull he can’t do anything but stare at the people around him because he is so tired. He’s hyper-vigilant to a fault, he notices when the trim on the floor at doctors’ offices is half an inch too high when it comes back from behind the cabinet and he notices when people start their sentences over and over until they just give up because they don’t feel like what they have to say is worth it (it always is). He watches everything because Connor is so, so ready for anything to go awry at any goddamn moment.

Except for tonight because Connor tells you all he was going to do was take a walk so he could air himself out because he had a smoke before he came and he didn’t want to bring the smell into your home and all he was going to do was go for a walk. And he feels awful because if he had just payed a little more attention, maybe, he would have been on time and fine but instead he got his head in the clouds and Connor feels like he can never relax again after this. He tells you that he’s so vigilant, he’s so, so vigilant – “You know?! Right?!” – he was just too relaxed tonight and walked too far from his suburb and he tells you about how these two fucking guys started to give him a hard time and he should have just turned around when his phone died. He tells how you they were a handful of years older than him and how foolish he felt instantly for not realizing sooner that he was in trouble because some frat boys didn’t like his hair or his nail polish and he didn’t realize all the rumours had spread so broadly because one minute he’s annoyed and the next he’s getting shoved and he feels the pavement against his face. 

Connor can’t stop talking about all the mistakes in these few moments, he can’t stop pushing himself down because he should know better for no other reason than why would anything good happen to him? and it knocks the wind out of you like you were there with him. You feel like you need to brace yourself on him and at the same time keep him with you, safe, forever because Connor has had to go through so fucking much and it’s not fair at all. 

“So, you can draw your own conclusions from there.” And that’s it. Connor stops talking, maybe because he doesn’t want to for his sake or he doesn’t want to for your sake and it’s quiet again like the two of you are floating through space together but so, so grounded. 

You’re quiet, you don’t know what to say or do and, yeah, this was definitely not Connor’s fault. You want to hold his hands but he’s bloody all over and you don’t want to hurt him more and you’d hug him but you can’t imagine how bruised he is and you aren’t sure if you want to know even if he’d let you. 

“Well…did you win?” The words come out of your mouth before you can even think them through fully and this happens a lot after every time Connor gets into a fight whether it be his fault or not and you know you probably shouldn’t ask but Connor knows how to throw a fucking punch and you’re nosy as all hell. 

Connor breaks out into a huge grin before grimacing, smiling with a split lip is not comfortable but he can’t help it either, he kind of loves it even though he knows you try your hardest not to enable him. He laughs and it’s like everything is fine again, “You know I did. It was close, though, for a second.”

You bite your lip and try to stifle your laugh and Connor reaches out with his pointer finger to pull your lip down so he can hear one of the few things he declares as Heaven’s gift to the world because sometimes you really do make him think God is out there and real. You both sigh so lost in each other for a moment, you clean the cuts on his knuckles and the scrapes on his palms and it feels like the water washes away so much more than dirt and blood tonight and you don’t know if it’ll stay that way tomorrow but you tell each other all you have to worry about is right now. The fingers you’re so used to holding on to when things are a little too loud for your liking are covered in medical wraps, some of them bound together and some of them with more freedom, you do what you can. 

But you stand there smiling at him and his long, dangly legs and his messy hair and oh, how badly you wish everyone could see him like this, you wish people got to see him grow and change and see that he’s always been so worthy of love and always will be. Hell, you wish Connor could see himself this way, you love him so much, you’ve seen the rise and fall of so many days together and you hope everyone gets this kind of love because you adore every piece of it. It can be so hard and so messy but it is so good when all is said and done. But your mind goes on.  
“Do you want a change of clothes? Yours are kind of…” bloody, but you feel too strange to say it. 

Connor nods, and you retrieve a shirt and pair of pajama pants he’s left at your house for emergencies and when you miss him and the world feels too big to be alone in, Connor always wants you to feel near to him even when you’re not and he honestly likes having a fourth of a drawer at your place. You certainly don’t mind it either, you love wearing his shirts and wrapping yourself up in his hoodies whether they fit right or not, you love how Connor feels and you love the way Connor’s trust feels, he’s intoxicating. 

“Thank you.” Connor’s words are honest and true, he takes your hands in his and swings them about a little, even now he’s so handsy with you but you don’t mind. Connor is a sea of phrases that check in on you all the time because Connor knows what it’s like to feel hurt and afraid and so do you but he wishes you could forget, he tries so hard. 

You ask before helping him out of his sweater, he says he’ll do the rest on his own and you think it’s because he doesn’t want you to see the bruises and he’s allowed, he’s more than allowed. You wait outside the bathroom and bring some blankets out into your living room and make a space big enough and soft enough for the two of you, you check all the locks on your windows and doors; you want Connor to feel safe. By the time you make your way back to the bathroom Connor has his head poked out of the door, his wavy hair tied up in the little bun with only a bit of his fringe left out and he turns his head to shut the bathroom light off and grab his phone. He hugs you, placing a kiss on top of your head and you grip every so lightly onto his t-shirt as you listen to his heart beat and his voice hum in his chest. 

The two of you spend the night alternating between the living room and the kitchen until the pizza you’ve popped in the oven is done, you text Zoe finally to let her know Connor is okay but his phone might be out of commission for a while and you keep him near in the gentle light. Connor doesn’t mention anything else about his encounter with the two stranger boys, he knows he doesn’t have to but if he did want to he could at any time, but he doesn’t. You trace little hearts over his bandages and maybe the two of you steal a glass of wine each to sip on until sleep from the not-so-secret wine stash in your house, it depends who you ask and Connor falls asleep before you for one of the first times while you play with his hair. 

You look at all the little details on Connor’s face and he’s so peaceful when he sleeps its unreal, his eyebrows are relaxed and his breathing is steady and he can do anything, Connor’s life is a force of nature. Connor is a force of nature, he’s kissing in the rain even though he says he hates it and he’s a rocky recovery and he’s not perfect and that’s okay. You know you haven’t fixed Connor, Connor hasn’t fixed Connor because you don’t think he needs to be fixed, Connor needs a lot of things and the changes that come with that but he’s doing this on his own terms with his own will and you can’t wait to see the rest of his life if he lets you. You hope he does, you know he’s excited for the rest of yours too. Everything isn’t really fine but also everything really is fine, it’s an odd line to walk so instead you move next to your boyfriend and try to catch a few hours of sleep and a good dream or two. The sun will rise and tomorrow will be better, you’ve promised it to Connor silently and you know he’d try to promise it to you too.


End file.
